Sunflowers🌻

My wee, little olive trees have been very rewarding to grow.

They're still so small, but I love them so much 😍

Northern Lights, Cannabis sativa.

Lilac. Every spring I make sure to stick my face in lilac blooms as often as possible. They are beautiful and the smell is the very definition of aromatherapy.

Willows are lovely. I love how they sway, I love how they are the emo-bangs-haircut of trees, how you can weave their branches into baskets. Their smooth bark and silvery leaves, how their presence signals that water is close by. They are fey trees; if dryads exist then I am certain they are kin with willow trees.

Oaks are a close second. Big, tough, slow-growing, gives acorns back to the forest denizens, leaves are fill out character. They are the old grandpas of the forest, nurturing the younger life forms, offering them nooks and crannies to nest in, and eventually donating their bodies to the bacteria and fungus in the soil. They also make the best structures for tree houses, in my experience.

Dahlias, such a beautiful flower

Why not both?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liriodendron_tulipifera

Pretoria. National Flower of South Africa.

A few years ago, we buried my last grand father. Mom made a speach about how she used to be young, and look up to her parents and grand parents. Now she has no one to look up to.

She (and her brother and sisters) are the next Elders of the Family.

Siblings and cousins then realised that WE (early to late 20s) are the next generation to be planning funerals, and will have to import these flowers to make mom happy in the future.

Hopefully that day is still 10-20 years in the future, but it is still on the radar of "someday, I will be calling around for these flowers"

Birch! It's the best! No other tree is as birch-like as a birch tree!

Bradford Pears. They're the first to bloom here in the spring, and they have this distinct, sweet scent. Always makes me happy when they come out.

Sadly, over the years, I've learned that I'm not supposed to like them. They're not native at all to my region, and a real sign of suburbia doing dumb shit to mother nature. Ah well, I still think they're cool.

Might be a bit basic, but tulips always make me feel bit happier. They're tons of other plants more fascinating, but tulips are just so easy to enjoy.

Pecan trees make delicious food and get really big & shady.

Jacarandas. They're a big deal in the town where I was born, and they always remind me of home and my grandparents who have now passed. Plus they're just beautiful.

Ferns, love them, 720 pairs of chromosomes and all, been there before any grass, you have to respect that

Flower: Columbine. You can pull petals off and suck nectar out of them. Way more fun than it ought to be.

• Tree: Corkscrew hazel
• Flower: Garden rose

Trees = Redwoods because we had them around where I grew up (Pacific Northwest) and they're gorgeous. I like how the outer bark is really soft, too. And they're massive. There's one you can drive under, though I'm not sure if it's still standing. You never know.

Flowers = Hyacinths because of this jpop song. It's especially wild in Dolby Atmos. I don't know if the sound engineer was high when they mastered it for Atmos or what but... it's an experience. I don't think YouTube does Atmos. Pretty sure it doesn't. If you have Apple Music, they have it there. But cool/trippy songs aside, geraniums. I like the shade of green of the leaves and how sturdy they look compared with other flowers. But I started noticing hyacinths after I heard and fell for the song, and those are pretty cool, too.

Texas mountain Laurel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermatophyllum_secundiflorum

They have flowers that smell like artificial grape.

Mesquite trees. They make my food more noms.

Also wood working with mesquite, it's got the perfect density for being workable, looks nice, and every cut makes the shop smell like a barbeque!

Powerfully-scented lilies.

I like lilies that are so pungent that people complain about how pungent they are.

I really love my begonias

Sapote is a great tree! It grows readily in the desert. It has both fruit and the wood is food safe for cutting boards and spoons, but it’s going extinct because people also use it for firewood :(